Ask, Listen and Respond
The people now entering your workplace are among the most technologically savvy around. They also are likely to have had little experience with the daily face-to-face interactions that occur in any professional’s life. If your summer associates and new recruits just started work, it’s probably already time to recommend that they step away from their computers and BlackBerrys, walk down the hall and start a conversation or two.
Much of the communication among today’s twenty-somethings takes place electronically. A 2005 report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among teens who go online daily and who own a cell phone, 53% most often communicate with friends via written messages, and 61% of the time they’re chatting via instant messaging (IM). In fact, I’ll bet that when you speak with them, they often respond using IM shorthand, for example, “Mary, BFN.” Translation: “Mary, bye for now.”
Your recruits may not be aware how critically important it is for them to connect one-on-one in today’s workplace. Talking with another person, even via cell phone, may not be second nature for many of them. Yet, soon they’ll need to participate in meetings in which others will expect them to think fast on their feet and respond. This is a quite different experience than IM-ing, where a recruit may read a message six times before responding.
Your recruits need to learn three skills quickly: Ask; Listen; and Respond. Encourage them to take advantage of the summer to become skilled in the give and take of normal business talk.
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